Mobile Payments & Commerce to conquering the world

Mobile Payments & Commerce to conquering the world

Last Thursday was held the awaited presentation conference of the annual research of Politecnico di Milano on Mobile Payments & Commerce, that is, everything concerning the purchase of goods and services (excluding digital content) through mobile phones. Both Remote purchases and Proximity payments were included.

The title itself sets out the distinctive features of the study: the great number of global initiatives and different players (banks, mobile phone operators, smartphone manufacturers, startups, etc.) and the transverse nature of the offer, that goes beyond the boundaries of the single nations.

It is clear that the stakes is not to be found only in direct revenue from transactions, but also in the wealth of data available on consumer buying behaviour.

In-store payments, which are quantitatively more significant compared to eCommerce (nevertheless is constantly growing), are enjoying great interest.

In 2015, digital card payments in Italy reached 175 billion euro. In 2016, they increased by 9% to 190 billion euro, equivalent to 24% of Italian households’ consumption. Once again, this growth is largely attributable to the New Digital Payments – the most innovative digital payment methods (eCommerce, ePayment, Mobile Payments & Commerce, Contactless Payment, Mobile POS) – amounting to over 30 billion euro (+46% compared to 2015) and now worth 16% of total digital card payments (12% in 2015).

The study puts forward the consideration that in 2016 the New Digital Payments proved to be the engine able to bring Italians closer to electronic payments as replacements of cash. 2016 was also a successful year for contactless payments, which exceeded 7 billion euro and 140 million transactions (5% of card transactions).

Although Italy is still far from foreign trends and experiments, it seems not to stand by and watch. The retailers are willing to offer payments through mobile phones and the customers are more receptive to new proposals.

As usual, we provided the Osservatorio with our experience and vision on trends and opportunities for the report creation.